We have 2 autos in our fleet of a 100 tractors at our terminal and nobody wants to run them, myself included.
The engagement in reverse is hard to modulate, like a high stall converter in a high performance car. To smoothly pop the trailer up to get under it is a pain, much more fluid, easier, and less violent in a manual than our autos.
They miss downshift commands several times per run when set on manual shift, which could be dangerous at times when you need to grab a lower gear and get out of the way. On auto shift the downshifting is near useless and drops a gear on preset parameters much like a 4 wheeler, not reading ahead for road conditions and dropping a gear to scrub off speed like a driver would do when visually noticing a need to drop speed a mile ahead.
With some friendly drag racing with a buddy in the auto and myself in a convential 10 speed or vice versa the stick shift wins every single time, bar none, by the the length of the trailer in a matter of 10 seconds off a light.
Last but not lease they burn more fuel, on identical runs which I do daily 6 times a week the auto burns on average 10 gallons of fuel more per day, like clockwork than the 10 speed. May vary on rain, and a few skid of weight plus or minus a few but overall easy 10 gal per 500 mile run. That is fact, I've done both transmissions for years on the same run to the mile, even identical days with 2 of us out on the same run, 1 in auto, 1 in 10 speed manual, not once has the auto burned the same fuel as the manual, always more.
And finally my company informally asked around and everyone favored the sticks and our new 07 fleet is now all 10 speed, not 1 automatic. If there was any savings cost wise our company thru fuel or maintenance we would be forced to run them, without question.
Good idea on paper but best saved for local work, large city work and for companies that hire new drivers until they can add the next element of shifting a truck to the learning curve.
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